


Be Kind, Aim For My Heart

by impossiblesongs



Series: Post-Library River and Confrontational Twelve [4]
Category: Doctor Who
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, F/M, angst and family drama happens
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-03-02
Updated: 2015-03-02
Packaged: 2018-03-15 12:46:24
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,450
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3447725
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/impossiblesongs/pseuds/impossiblesongs
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p><i>“You didn’t expect me to stay home with the kids all the time, did you?”</i> – A sitter comes to help the Doctor take care of the tots, River has someplace to be. (part of the ‘Post-Library River & Confrontational Twelve’ series)</p>
            </blockquote>





	Be Kind, Aim For My Heart

**Author's Note:**

> **Disclaimer:** Not my characters. This has been a disclaimer.  
>  **AN:** Um... don' t hate me ~~though I guess I will take the blame, obviously~~. You knew the angst had to come eventually. And I'm so sorry. Title comes from the novel ‘The Three Musketeers’ by Alexandre Dumas [(x)](http://www.goodreads.com/quotes/367191-be-kind-aim-for-my-heart)

 

 

_Blu is human-plus._

 

The sentence is all over his brain lately. Like he can’t quite think of anything else. Ever since that day happened, with the youngest Blu (and the youngest post-library wife, as a matter of fact) that he’s ever encountered, there’d been a particular upgrade with the chaos that sprinted into his life at any moment’s notice.

 

Blu either turns up, or he doesn’t. It’s never a _right_ version, either. Never the one he’d spoken to, the eldest of all the Blu’s he’d met up with, on that very last time. Highly worrisome, that is. And it’s not the whole human-plus business, either. He’d assured River of that already and he’d _meant_ it. It’s the uncertainty of it all. This constant growing helplessness that accompanies this want and need to make sure Blu is, in all things, okay. The Parent Bug, his River had called it.

 

The Doctor never thought he’d be recalling River and himself as the ‘easy part’ when it comes to timelines but it’s impossible (irrational, even) to keep track of anyone at any time whatsoever. If the Doctor were not already gray-haired, this family of his would have _earned_ him those grays.

 

They are, in every sense, a colossal timey-wimey mess. With first and lasts and in-betweens, loopholes here and pit-stops there. This family of his is scattered all over the place, all these versions, and apparently there is no correct ordering of events. There’s only what happens now, and now is happening enough of the time to make him forget there are little things called the past and the future and how they should matter or something.

 

“Honey,” River hollers at him from the kitchen, but the Doctor is currently focused on the task at hand.

 

He’s tinkering away with a present he’d brought for Art (a further along Art, but apparently you get what you get these days) from his latest travels. The item is indeed deemed highly inappropriate for a ten month old to have, but what the hell. It’s not like wee Art is his elder brother….

 

The Doctor leans over and glares at his youngest son, reconsidering the gift in hand for just a moment. “You won’t use this to blow something up, will you?” he asks of the toddler strapped safely into his swinging device. “Come to think of it, I actually nicked this,” The Doctor confesses, scoffing at the metal item in hand. “Just picked it up and put it in my pocket,” he frowns disapprovingly at his own actions and then at the item in question. “I now have actual proof that I’ve been hanging around your mother for far too many centuries.”

 

Art, in all of his drooling glory, simply smiles and coos at his father like the sun is made from his frown lines. The Doctor nearly hands the gift over just because the boy makes him feel important, and so effortlessly, but his wife is calling for him again. He fishes inside his pocket for a teething ring and makes sure Art has a hold of it before getting up and going to see what River could possibly want.

 

In the kitchen, he finds River handing over their Jessie into some strangers arms. Oh, how he does wish this didn’t keep happening.

 

“River!” he calls out for her attention, “What are you doing? Who’s _that_?”

 

“That is a she, and she has a name.” says the stranger evenly, only glancing at him fleetingly before better positioning Jessie in her arms.

 

“Don’t make a big fuss,” River says, heading over and kissing him on the cheek quickly. He spies the vortex manipulator on her wrist and his own hand reaches out reflexively, closing around her wrist and holding it there, his eyebrows raised at her rather ferociously.

 

“You didn’t expect me to stay home with the kids all the time, did you?” His wife grins at him, half amused and then half saddened when she realizes he’s not that far along. “Oh,” she says softly and brushes her fingers through his gray hairs in an act of comfort. “Still early, then.” River kisses him properly, on the mouth this time. It’s sweet and soft and tastes a little like _sorry_.

 

“Spoilers,” she whispers, patting him lightly on the cheek, “sweetie.”

 

River tosses him one of her very naughty girl smirks, the sight a reminiscent of the days when she very recklessly jumped out of spaceships and was a gun toting queen. He nearly smiles at the memories it brings forth only just like that, in that very instant instant, she’s well and utterly gone from him. He really should have destroyed that little gadget ages ago, before it could ever have become somewhat of a family heirloom.

 

His attention turns to rest on the strange human woman who’s got hold of _his_ Jessie. Middle-aged, she is, going by the show of wrinkles on her eyes. Her hair has dimmed along with that age, too. It’s gone a golden-strawberry color where once, he assumed, it must have been brighter.

 

The woman does not address him but chuckles when Jessie reaches out and places her tiny hand on the woman’s cheek. If she can feel his silent studying it seems she’s not one bit bothered by it. The stranger kisses Jessie’s temple instead, all too consumed in coddling his child. The Doctor more than disapproves of it.

 

“Hello, you.” She says to his child with nothing but pure affection. “I think it has been far too long, don’t you?”

 

The stranger’s olive-grey eyes turn to look at him. It’s not the age hidden behind those eyes that stir his hearts into familiarity, though that does help. It’s that he’s used to the young, bright-eyed, unconditional love that’s usually found pooling behind them. She seems a completely different person without it.

 

“Hello, grandfather.” Says Susan.

 

 

✯  ✯  ✯

 

 

River finds herself on the planet Rooxnas 3. It’s a skeevy little place where the flagrant come to mingle and make unholy trades for this or that, and the coordinates Susan delivered point her to the most populated drinking establishment. River has to roll her eyes, ever so displeased with the chosen location

 

“Bugger it all,” she mutters, making her way towards the appointed.

 

She ignores the several eyes that follow her along and pities that she didn’t think to bring her sonic blaster with her. If anything starts she’ll have to use her bare hands to defend herself, not that she’s not capable. Only, the prospect seems more exciting than it should be. She hasn’t had a good fight on her hands in far too long.

 

There, right up at the bar side, she spots him. He sticks out like a lightning rod. Blu always has to her.

 

River marches straight to him, as she’d long lost the fondness for games lifetimes ago. Finding the stool next to his vacant, she slides in.

 

“You could have chosen a cleaner bar,” she comments disapprovingly. “Cleaner planet, actually.”

 

Her son agrees with a solemn nod before flagging down the barman and ordering his mother’s favorite drink. He waits until it is served to her before he turns and she sees him properly.

 

“You look very young, dear.” Says River. “Finally taking tips from me, I see.”

 

“If anyone asks I’ll say my mum gave me the idea. To, what was it again?” Blu feigns thoughtfulness. “Ah, ah yes. That’s what it was: to freak people out.”

 

River chuckles.

 

“Where are you, mum?” he asks her.

 

“In a shoddy looking bar with you.” She answers back cheekily.

 

Her son snorts into his drink but she does not miss the weariness in him. River lays a hand on his shoulder, hoping the weight of it will calm through whatever is troubling him.

 

“I’m far enough, Blu,” she says, voice soft when she asks him the same. “And where might you be?”

 

The smile on his face proves to be of the rueful sort. He finishes off his drink and pushes the glass away. “I’m old, at my end probably.” Blu says, matter-of-fact, and takes a sideway glance at his mother. “I’ll be…” but he stops, changing his mind and saying instead, “I’m going to save you soon.”

 

There’s a frightened intake of breath that she hadn’t expected of herself. Her eyes dart from him to the rest of the bar, blinking away the moistness quickly gathering there.

 

It makes better sense now. Choosing this place. The lowly do not judge or suspect, and more importantly, this is no place you’d find a doctor.  

Faintly she can still hear the echoes of that day, of that life. _Count the shadows_. A chill goes through her at the thought of it. Looking over to her son, her first baby, her heart feels strangled inside of her chest.

 

_Please, don’t. Don’t go there. Don’t ever go there._

 

At least, that’s what wants to spill out past her lips. She knows she can’t say that, she mustn’t. This is fixed and Blu has enough doubts for the both of them, she’s sure.

 

Her son must know her sentiments. He always could read her like that, a great deal better than his father ever could. She gets a brave smile for all of her worrying. All teeth with this face of his so much younger than it should be. He wants to look his best.

 

He’s so much like his father at this moment, she thinks. The nostalgic-idiot one, the one that she married.

 

“Promise me you’ll come back to me, Blu.” She begs tearfully, placing her hand above her son’s own and giving it a meaningful squeeze.

 

Blu’s smile falters. River imagines not many would have caught that twitch in his façade, but she does, and as much as he is like his father, he is his mother’s son as well. She’s never damned the sight as she does that moment, because he soldiers on. A tactic she knows well. Blu looks her in the eye, all iron-willed and fake bravado, and he lies.

 

“If you have my favorite waiting at home for me when I’m done, then I don’t see why not.” he mutters airily, as if it’s that simple. Blu lifts his empty glass and clinks it with hers. “Drink up, mother. The sooner you finish you can treat me to someplace you approve of.”

 

River forces on a smile for him because even in his lying he deserves it. Because this is the beginnings of a goodbye, only she doesn’t know how to say it this time.

 

 

✯  ✯  ✯

 

 

“Is this how it is going to be, then?” the Doctor asks this far-too-old-to-actually-be Susan person setting his Jessie down for a nap. He’s got a sleeping toddler in his arms, too. Art had drifted off right on after his sister. The two tots are in sync practically, and the Doctor has never been more thankful for that.

 

He’s set his son down carefully in the crib opposite to his sister and waits for this granddaughter of his to say something. Anything. However, when he doesn’t get any response from this _supposed_ Susan, he further accuses.

 

“So I look around the corner and a new one of you sprouts out of thin air, is that it? My hearts aren’t going to be able to take it. I’m old, I’m gray-”

 

“I’ve noticed.” Susan interrupts his ranting, standing all the way upright once she’s satisfied the twins will not wake from their slumber. “You don’t change.” She says calmly, passively, sparing a glance at him and no more.

 

Her face is set oddly, he thinks. There are just two big, bulging eyes looking – no, _observing_ him, for but a second. But then, it’s as if she remembers she couldn’t care less. He wonders, briefly, if maybe she’s a robot. Maybe that’s why her face is so bloody infuriatingly blank.

 

Susan grows bored of his silent musings and off she goes, heading back downstairs, and without his permission.

 

“What’s that supposed to mean?” the Doctor pesters on about her previous comment, following after her like she’s pulling at him with strings.

 

“What’s what supposed to mean?” she calls back to him, not stopping for him or his questions. He follows her into the kitchen where she fetches herself a glass of water.

 

“Oh, you know very well what I’m on about!” the Doctor says, far more easily disgruntled than he thought he could be by this indifference act Susan is set on playing. “Don’t spin things around and around, all nonsensical-like. That doesn’t work with this one.” He points to his own face. “If you really were my son’s daughter,” he goads, “you’d know that by now.”

 

Susan blinks at him, utterly unimpressed or affected by his attempts. She finishes off her glass of water, staring at him the entirety of the time and rinsing the glass clean again. She places it back in the cupboard from where she plucked it.

 

“You don’t change.” She says again.

 

There’s something in the way she says it, in the way she walks right past him like he’s nothing to her, that makes him certain that he’s done something wrong. Something he can’t fix. And, now, that just won’t do.

 

 

✯  ✯  ✯

 

 

“I, well… I may have cheated.” Admits Blu to his mother, when they are sitting in on a sound check for a very popular rock band, somewhere in the 1970s. The band were just about to rehearse one of Blu’s favorite songs. The opening notes played and soon the lead singer joined in.

 

_Well, we all need someone we can lean on_

_And if you want it, you can lean on me_

 

River give her attention to her eldest, her silence only prompting him to continue.

 

“I met granddad.” Confesses Blu. “And gran, too, a bit. From far away, really. They were together. Just moving into the house dad got them, the one with the Tardis blue colored door. Amy was inside, doing god knows what, making a call perhaps. But I helped Rory carry a sofa off from the moving truck. He thanked me for it. Shook my hand and everything.” Blu huffed out a laugh, marveling, “I really do have his nose.”

 

The peace on his face gave away so much. It was childish at heart. Innocent, but speculative. Awestruck and profoundly moved. Mostly, it told of a longing that had finally been fulfilled. He composed himself before peering back at his mother, pursing his lips and readying to defend against a scolding.

 

“I know, alright? And before you go on about it, I must assure you that I was careful! I left before Amy could even catch glimpse of me. They didn’t know anything, and they wouldn’t have had an inkling even if they could have guessed on it. I swear it on my life. On yours, even. I was that good.”

 

_Yeah, we all need someone we can dream on_

_And if you want it, baby, well you can dream on me_

 

River found herself speechless. Her father and her son. Together for one instant in time. His eyes were pleading for her to be alright with this. For her to tell him that it was okay. That it wasn’t a reckless and dangerous decision to have willingly crossed timelines like this. As Blu very well knows it was. But her boy, her first, she knew well.

 

She’d accepted long ago that he would never bow to what was right over what suited his purposes. That is what made him dangerous. Blu had always been the less accepting of the three of her children over the responsibilities attached to time and therefore he had been all the more careless in following them.

 

Blu was not like his father in that sense, and that truth always drove the Doctor furious. Well, when they were finally better acquainted with who the other was, that is.

 

In truth, Blu had always been _her_ son. Like a river in all its might, he had his unpredictability. His current proved to move strong and unyielding, no matter what stood in his path. Blu would either flow through what was in front of him without much a bother or he would engulf his surroundings whole. There had never been an in-between with him and only age calmed his choice of direction.

 

At this very moment, age is what has him flowing ever so willingly.

 

_Yeah, we all need someone we can bleed on, yeah_

_And if you want it, baby, well you can bleed on me_

 

“Anyway, I’m not sorry.” He lifted his face, chin up high and proud, but it’s his eyes that betray him. There was fear there. Dread. There was the telling of a man grown old, making dangerous choices because he was running out of opportunities to keep on making them.  

 

“I had to, mum.” He said, his voice almost repentant. Not for going and seeing and doing, no – never, she knew – but for perhaps disappointing her with that audacity of his to do as he pleased. “I had to know them, see them, for myself. Just once. Before….”

 

Blu trailed off. He looked to those young-again, trembling hands of his. They seemed to sit so useless on his lap and he bunched them into fists, willing them to stop their shaking. They did not.

 

River moved her own hands, older than his would ever be, and gripped at them tightly. Warming them. Sheltering them, while she could.

 

“They would have loved you,” She says to him, smiling as a tear rolls down her cheek. “Unconditionally and forever. As I do. As I always will.”

 

“And I you.” Blu chokes out, crumbling in front of her eyes like she’s not seen him do since he was but a boy. Her little boy. Looking younger than he has in years, when in truth he’s so much older than he ever has been. Her baby.

 

River takes him into her arms and says, “I’m sorry, my love. I’m sorry, I’m so sorry. Please, know I am. _Know_ that, and know that I love you and nothing will stop me from bringing you home when this is all said and done. Do you hear me? Nothing.”

 

“Bugger the noble speeches, mum,” retorts Blu. Accepting of his mother’s arms and love, all but her words. Hugging her just as tight as she’s hugging him. “Just bloody say thank you and let me get on with it, eh?”

 

River manages to laugh through her tears at his dry commentary. She wants to carry on hearing them for all of her existence. She wants to never, ever let him go.

 

_Bleed it alright, baby_

_Bleed it alright_

 

 

✯  ✯  ✯

 

 

When River makes it back to her home, she feels guilty and hollow and an utter failure. How can she mother Art and Jessie, protect them, when she can do nothing to protect Blu from what awaits him? How can she even call herself a mother, knowing what she knows will happen? She has no right. None at all.

 

Susan can’t, or won’t, look her in the eye when informing her that the twins have been fed, taken a nap, and are now in the playroom with their father.

 

River knows it is hard on her. Reliving this. If anyone knows of such a thing, and intimately, it’s River. But she can’t help Susan. She can barely help anyone at this point.

 

She hugs Susan before the girl goes and the hug is returned. Perhaps that’s something.

 

River does indeed find The Doctor in the playroom with their children. He’s on the floor, back supported up against the wall. Jessie on one lap and Art on the other, yet when he sees her again, she knows that he must know. Whether he’s worked it all out on his own or he’s just grasped at the makings of it, he knows.

 

“What have I done, River,” he asks of her.

 

So brokenhearted and listless he looks, there, stuck in a room with two toddlers of their own flesh and blood, alive and safe for the time being. He is shiny and new still, with their babies at his feet, and yet he’s caught suspended in the web of the future that stares him in the face, taunting him, never giving him reprieve of what awaits. He, her husband, the father of her children, so often resigned to the monstrous land of not knowing.

 

“What did I do?” he begs of her, and she doesn’t know how she’s supposed to say it. She doesn’t even realize she’s answered him until the tears on his face serve only as a mirroring of her own.

**Author's Note:**

>  **AN2:** btw, the band Blu and River were observing were the Rolling Stones during the European Tour of 1970 and they were rehearsing _[Let It Bleed](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GNTH9zmleBE)_.


End file.
